Jordan Heath-Rawlings
At the beginning of this year, we explored in detail why our stuff, and by that I mean almost everything we own just doesn’t really last anymore. It’s not a pretty picture, cheaper materials, cheaper labor, shorter lifespans, planned obsolescence, endless new and allegedly better models, and for many products, no easy way to repair them. In short, the people who make your stuff want it to break or at least to get old. And if it does break, they definitely don’t want you to fix it. And to them this year and this good news week, we and a growing number of wires from across the internet and around the world say, too bad we’re doing it. Your stuff might break. Sure, but there are millions of people fighting to let you fix it and to help you do it, I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings, and this is Good News Week on the Big Story where we bring you hopefully a little light before the holidays. Ali Volpe is a senior reporter at Vox who wrote about Well, how to Fix your stuff. Hey Ali.
Allie Volpe
Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
You are very welcome. I will start by asking you just why does everything I own and you own and we own feel so disposable these days?
Allie Volpe
Yes, it is totally not in your head either. My colleague Izzy Ramirez wrote a wonderful piece earlier this year sort of documenting the downturn in quality that you’ve been noticing, and what she found in her reporting was that this sort of planned obsolescence where products are phased out of fashion, sort of conditioned people into wanting the newest thing, we sort of think because it’s new, it must be better, which is not often the case. And then there’s also this sort of cultural social pressure to buy the newest quote, best thing, social media exacerbates trends, fast fashion hall content. I don’t know if you’ve seen any YouTube videos where people are going through their haul of clothing that they just bought, but it just encourages people to buy and buy more. The Wall Street Journal actually reported in 2019 that American shoppers are buying five times more clothing than they did in 1980. Wow. So we’re sort of just conditioned to want more all the time,
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
But here’s my question, even though it’s cheaper, does that mean that they truly just have to go when they’re damaged? It almost feels like we should get rid of them, but do we have to?
Allie Volpe
Right. I would say no. Generally among the experts I talked to, a good rule of thumb is if it’s going to cost you more to fix your thing than to get a new one, maybe you should consider getting a new one. But I was so surprised to learn that there’s so many things that we have that we actually can fix and it’s cheaper than getting a new thing and better for the world than getting a new thing.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Do you think that’s something that people just used to understand that we kind of forgot along the way that you can fix these things?
Allie Volpe
Yeah, I talked to folks who are a little bit older than me and in interviewing them in reporting for this story that I wrote about how to fix your stuff, and so many of them were like, yes, when I was growing up, I used to fix my own clothes. Even my mother would say she would get a hole in her jeans, they would mend it. It wasn’t like you would just run out to Macy’s and get a new pair of pants. So I think there has been a bit of a cultural shift where because it’s gotten so easy to just go to the store, order online, get that thing that you need, and because it is relatively inexpensive, it feels just way more accessible to get that new thing, oh, I’ve got a hole in my jeans time to get a new pair of jeans, which I don’t think there’s generally anything wrong with thinking that way. I think if you’ve worn your pants to a point where maybe you want another pair, I think that’s fine. Sure. But just the sort of we need to wear something new every season or if you’ve worn it twice, it’s no longer good. I don’t think that that is necessarily the best way to be thinking about our stuff.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Let’s leave fast fashion aside for now. I think we can both agree that it’s kind of the cheapest example of what we’re talking about here, but in terms of larger products or I guess not physically larger but more complex, some of the electronics we have now, there is I guess an entire movement that is pushing towards a more DIY approach to maintaining these items. Can you explain briefly, because we have touched on it on this show before even with Izzy, but explain the right to repair movement and the momentum it is gathering.
Allie Volpe
Yeah, so rights for repair pretty straightforward. It’s the idea that we should be able to fix our stuff. There should be more transparency into repair manuals or greater access to parts and tools and product design that allows for self-repair, that if we have something and it breaks, you don’t need to take it to someone else to fix it unless you really want to. And that’s both in changing legislation and attitudes of some of these companies that maybe make it really hard to fix your stuff, that you actually have to destroy the product to get into it. And so this goes for individuals who want to fix their stuff and if you want to take it to someone else, like a kiosk in the mall to fix your things. So you don’t need to go to the Apple Genius Bar, for example, to get a new phone or a new screen.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
There is near my house an appliance repair shop and it seems so quaint to me like something out of another era where you would go to bring your toaster or your coffee maker or whatever, but they are licensed only to repair certain things. I found out, and there are other things that they just, I guess don’t have parts for, don’t have, I don’t know whether it’s the manuals or whatever or they’re not allowed to repair them without affecting their warranty. How did we end up in this place where repairs are seen as proprietary rather than something that you could do to the item that you purchased and you own
Allie Volpe
Own right. To go back to the example of electronics, I know a lot of people want to jailbreak them or modify them, and it is technically legal at least here in the States, but a lot of these manufacturers make it so difficult to do that through their software updates. So it kind of prevents people from doing the things that they want to do with their stuff, and I think that’s what a lot of the rights to repair advocates are fighting against that no, if you bought it, you should be able to do with it what you want.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Let’s talk about practically repairing stuff now. This is what you dug into for one of your pieces in Vox when you set out to see what can be repaired and what can’t and did you expect to find could and couldn’t and did the results meet those expectations?
Allie Volpe
As someone who is truly hopeless with tools string a needle, electronics, anything, I anticipated that you would need an expert to repair most things, but I was happily mistaken. There are so many people that I spoke to this story who sort of bolstered my own confidence and just sharing that everything from refrigerators to Beloved baby blankets have DIY fixes. If you have the patience, that’s really all it is. Granted some of the electronic stuff is a little bit more difficult. You might need to outsource some tools or some parts, but there are tons of resources online from YouTube videos to I Fixit, which has a ton of guides to fix primarily electronics, but they have stuff on vacuum cleaners, other home electronics. They just kind of break it all down and give you the confidence to fix your stuff.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Do you think that people understand that they can fix that stuff and if not, why don’t they?
Allie Volpe
Right. I do think with some products people assume that there is nothing they can do If you crack your phone screen, and I definitely am one of those people, it’s like you think you have to take it to this store to get it fixed, but you absolutely can do it yourself if you have the right materials, the right instruction. However, I’m one of those people that I am not very dextrous. I’m not great with not very handy. Sure. So I’m of the mind of if it’s less to just take your phone to a kiosk in the mall, just do that. But also we need to remember, you don’t need to buy an entirely new thing. If your sweater gets a little hole, it is possible to fix that. You don’t need to throw it away. Also, I think the messaging around upgrading, especially when it comes to electronics, makes people believe they’re not getting the best unless they have the newest thing, and that is just not always the case. And so I think we just have to get out of that mindset of, okay, just because a new product is rolling out and there’s a lot of show about it, you don’t need to get that thing. My phone is so old, it still has a button. I have an iPhone with a button and it still works and I don’t need a new one and I’m okay with that.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Well, there’s all sorts of stories of people who hung onto their blackberries forever. They like the keys,
Allie Volpe
Right. I’m definitely one of those people where I want a button to touch. I get weirded out by too much touchscreen, and so I’m going to hold onto my old thing for as long as possible.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
What is that community like? And you met a lot of these people. Tell us about I guess the comradery or the growing sense of a movement amongst the people who are dedicated to teaching you how to fix things.
Allie Volpe
Right. I definitely think camaradery is the right word. I talked to someone from Repair Cafe, the International Repair Cafe group, and even though it’s an international group, it sort of thrives in local communities. You can set one up anywhere that you live, and it is a lot of people just bringing stuff that is broken and there’s someone who knows how to fix it, they can teach you how to fix it, and it’s all very community driven, which I think is awesome and people want to teach you how to do this stuff because I think that’s a lot of the mindset here is let’s keep this stuff out of the landfills. It’s better for the earth, it’s better for your wallet, and you get to learn something in the process, which I think is really nice.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Well, let’s do some practical tips then so that not necessarily because we’re not going to teach people how to do it on this podcast, but to show them what can be done and where the resources are to do it. And you looked into, as I mentioned, a number of different kind of categories of products that we often throw out. Let’s start with the easy one, which is close. We all know that you need to learn how to sew for people who came along after they taught home economics in school, that’s a brand new skill for a lot of people. How do you learn how to repair your clothes
Allie Volpe
As a person who does not know how to sew? There are a ton of YouTube videos teaching you how to do basic stitches, and that will get you a long way because pretty much every article of clothing can be fixed in some way. According to the author Erin Lewis Fitzgerald, she wrote a book called Modern Mending. There’s one exception, stretchy jeans. Those are probably no-go, but just basic stitches. You can fix a lot of things. There’s a movement of visible mending so you can kind of make your stuff beautiful by putting colorful patches or colorful threads to sort of get it a new personality. But definitely YouTube, Reddit is a great place, and Erin has a Facebook group called Modern Mending Club, which she recommended where people will ask questions all the time and folks will jump in with suggestions, which again feeds back into that comradery community focus.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
I’m going to up the difficulty a tiny little bit here. What about just basic furniture? Like I mentioned, the stuff that we often get, I think the stuff that we order, especially site unseen, especially during the pandemic, probably a lot of people got this stuff and now it’s feeling a little rickety. Where do you find the resources to take care of that? How difficult is it?
Allie Volpe
Right, which is a little bit more difficult. Speaking for personal experience by boyfriend is a carpenter, so he works with wood and furniture a lot, so I can see the skill that goes into making a good piece of furniture, fixing a good piece of furniture. He is asked all the time to fix wobbly legs or things on chairs, bottoms of chairs that have fallen out. So it is a little bit more difficult, and I think it’s worth noting that if your piece of furniture is made with particle board, which is an engineered wood product that is commonly used in IKEA furniture, it really can’t be fixed according to a furniture repair shop owner. But if it’s a solid piece of wood, you can glue it back together again. Again, there are a lot of YouTube channels that you can look up, various tutorials. There’s one called Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration, a channel called Fixing Furniture, which one of the sources I spoke to. He runs that one for simple fixes like an unbalanced chair. You can find a tutorial and fix that yourself, but because it is a more skilled practice, you might want to go to a furniture repair expert.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
What about more complex stuff like home appliances, which you also looked into, and that’s one where I think a lot of people often replace them without realizing, speaking from personal experience multiple times here and many people I know without realizing that yeah, maybe that old washing machine that makes those sounds sounds kind of ugly and looks ugly, but it’s actually way better than the electronic touchscreen one you’re going to replace it with. How possible is it to replace those and can you do it yourself or is this one where you find the handyman?
Allie Volpe
I think Consumer Reports has a really, really great interactive tool that you can put in the type of appliance that you have the year you purchased it, the original cost, and how much a repair would be, and it sort of helps you factor in whether you should just buy a new appliance or try to fix it yourself. A consumer reports expert mentioned to me that if the repair costs are approaching 50% of what you originally paid to buy it, you might want to consider replacing it. And there are parts of certain appliances like a door gasket on a refrigerator or a dishwasher that are actually pretty straightforward according to that Consumer Reports expert. So you can again, look up a YouTube video or there’s a website called repair clinic.com, which would help you diagnose your problem or find source parts. I fix it again, their guides are incredible.
They’ve got refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum, and other appliance guides. So there are simple things that you can do yourself. Some manufacturers even have support pages for troubleshooting certain problems like noises, like an air conditioner not working super well, but if your appliance is still under warranty, you messing with it could void the warranty. So it’s worth checking your warranty and reaching out to the manufacturer just to see if there’s anything covered. I would say that’s probably the way to start and if the instructions for any repairs, if you are not under warranty and you’re on your own, if there’s anything that seems like beyond what you can do, you should not feel bad calling up a handyman.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Okay. This is the last one I’ll ask you about and probably the most pertinent to most of the people listening, and I’ll need you to kind of walk us through what is and isn’t permitted or possible because it’s really complex and that’s smartphones, whether it’s cracked screens or batteries or just maybe in your case, one that you really like the actual design of and you want to live as long as possible. Where does that right to repair come in? Can you fix it yourself? What happens if you do and you mess it up? Walk us through that, what people’s options are.
Allie Volpe
Right. According to experts, there are very few tech products or tech fixes that are outside what the average person can do, which is the plus side, but there’s a lot of issues when it comes to how the products are actually made for you to get in there. One example is the original version of the Microsoft Surface laptop required people to cut a fabric cover if they wanted to get into the nuts and bolts. So basically you had to destroy the laptop if you wanted to fix it, and Microsoft did take that feedback and they improved the design of the laptop, so now it’s not something you have to ruin. So if you have access to a manual instructions, replacement parts, you can repair it. Again, it sort of goes to the quality of the instructions and size of the device too. One expert noticed the smaller the device, the more difficult any fixes may be, but if it’s a common thing like replacing a battery, there are tons of guides online.
It’s not the most difficult fix. Apparently. I have not done this, but apparently it just involves unscrewing some screws and prying some things out. So it’s not too hard. And again, I fix it has plenty of guides with beautiful pictures that will walk you through how to do it. And some companies do have troubleshooting guides for things like screen repair. Apple has repair manuals for iPhone, Mac, laptops, desktops, but I think if you’ve, again, read through the instructions, can’t really grasp how to do it if getting the parts that be too difficult or you just don’t feel confident, you should not feel ashamed to seek out a professional.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
You’ve mentioned a couple times the camaraderie of this movement like we talked about, but also just there are so many different resources out there, but they all can seem, I guess, a little niche at times that you have to really know how to go hunting for them. But once people find them, they seem to find them really valuable and a number of these people have large followings on social media. What would have to change in order for the knowledge of repair and the ethos behind it to be a little more mainstream?
Allie Volpe
I think a lot of the responsibility lies with manufacturers of items across the board to sort of make the repair guides more transparent, make their software easier to modify, and in the US a handful of states actually have right to repair balls that have helped make that easier. Massachusetts has one about the right to repair vehicles. Colorado has one about repairing wheelchairs, and this year alone, 33 states of Puerto Rico considered right to repair legislation. So I think it is something that people are thinking about. Again, the consumer has a lot of responsibility, but I think it’s time for manufacturers of products to really take a look at how they can extend the life of their products because I think this has grave consequences on the earth. We need to ensure people are using their products for as long as possible and not throwing them away because climate change is obviously a huge, huge thing that we all need to come together to tackle. So I think the more we can use our stuff, the less we can keep it out of landfills is the better.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
What’s the one thing you want people to understand about being able to, or the process of repairing their own things beyond the fact that we’ve already discussed that it is possible?
Allie Volpe
Right. To go back to the point that I just made of don’t be afraid to outsource the repair to a professional, and I think especially when it comes to clothing, because I think people might think like, oh, that’s a simple one. I can learn how to stitch. If you want to send it out to a local tailor or take it to a local dry cleaner. There’s a lot that could be done to salvage that piece even if you don’t feel confident in doing it yourself. I always assumed that once a shirt was torn, it was time to it, but there are plenty of places where you can even mail your items and they can breeze new life into your clothes, especially if you have some sort of sentimental value to them except for stretch jeans again. Right.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Ali, thank you so much for this. It’s heartwarming to know that it’s possible.
Allie Volpe
Yeah, exactly. I need to learn how to stitch, I think is the moral of the story.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
It’s a good time for a New Year’s resolution. Exactly. Thanks again.
Allie Volpe
Thanks so much for having me.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Allie Volpe for Vox. That was the big story for more from us, including the previous episodes of Good News Week. If you go back further, lots of bad news, you can head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can always pass along suggestions. We do love suggestions for good news. Most of the time we can’t do it, but we will if we can. I promise. You can find us on Twitter
@thebigstoryfpn. You can also write to us the address is hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca, and you can call us and leave a voicemail. That number is 4 1 6 9 3 5 5 9 3 5. Thanks for listening. I hope you’re having a wonderful week. I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.
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